The Real Sovereigns
by AJ Van Writ-101
Summary: There is a reason why the Four's reign was the Golden Age of Narnia, and why they are hailed as Kings and Queens above all others. Caspian is about to get a history lesson like he never had before. {No pairings}


**Disclaimer:** In the Name of the Lion, and with Aslan as my judge, I, AJ, do hereby swear that all properties recognized as from the Chronicles of Narnia do not belong to me, rather are to be attributed to C. S. Lewis.

**Note:** This is the first story in a mini-series I will be doing called The Real Sovereigns. This one-shot sets the premise for the rest of the stories, which will have about 3-5 chapters each. Posts may be irregular due to keeping the schedule for my Naruto/Harry Potter XO as a priority.

Also, I will _NOT_ be using the movies for reference in any capacity except to steal Oreius on occasion (who is just the coolest for how little screen-time he gets). I've read the books more times than I care to count, and much prefer them to the modern films (the BBC was alright, though the effects have not aged well).

* * *

Caspian leaned back against cool stone, letting his eyes drift over the candlelit carvings on the wall across from him. Old, ancient even, etchings that depicted the four people he admired the most stared back at him. Was it only a few months ago that he first laid eyes on this particular scene?**1** The stone image had seemed so ethereal, so amazing. And now…

"Prince Caspian?" called a soft voice. The boy jumped and turned to face the speaker. It was a boy, barely the same age as him,**2** and yet he was so much more. The prince couldn't help his eyes darting between the man depicted on the wall and the boy that stood before him.

This was the real King Edmund, and yet not. The differences between the dead stone man and the living child were as night and day. Neither felt quite real, yet both most certainly were.

"Ah… K-King Edmund, sorry, I'm… that is to say, I was… um..."

"Peace," the boy-man said. A tiny smile touched his mouth as he walked a bit closer; the proximity only emphasizing the difference in height as Caspian had to look downward. "You came here alone to seek solace after a long day, and if you wish it I will leave you undisturbed further. However, I find that speaking of your troubles helps to ease the confusion of the mind even if it cannot solve the problem."

"No, I mean, that's alright, I don't mind," Caspian said, not quite confident enough to ask _King Edmund himself_ to leave him be. He glanced at the picture again, and this time the king followed his gaze.

"Ah! I remember this scene," the king said. "If I'm not mistaken, this carving is commemorating the success of our first campaign against the Giants of Ettinsmoor.**3** Peter, Lucy and myself returned to the Cair in a triumphant parade and Susan met us at the gate with handmade garlands to welcome us. That was in our tenth year."

"Ten,"Caspian said, half to himself. "I knew that, in the stories, you were crowned at a young age, but you already look so young in this picture even if it is so much older than you are now… I mean...!"

But King Edmund laughed, seeming not at all offended by the minor slight. "I imagine when you blew our sister's horn you were hoping for the kings and queens as shown in this image, and were quite disappointed when you got children instead."

Caspian ducked his head a little, feeling sheepish at being so accurately read. "And only two of the Four at that," he added, slightly emboldened by King Edmund's good humor.

The king waved a dismissive hand. "Oh you got all of us, but the girls are with Aslan doing something only He knows. It is just like our first battle, when we fought the White Witch: Peter and I lead the frontal assault on her army, and Aslan took the girls to bring reinforcements from the back, although we didn't know it at the time. There's no telling what He is going to do this time, but whatever it is, we need to be ready for it and do what we can in the meantime."

"The queens did not participate in the main battle against the Witch?" Caspian asked. He wasn't so surprised that the Gentle Queen had stayed out of the battle, but that the Valiant had as well… though if she was little more than a child – being younger than King Edmund – then it would make sense if her role was much smaller.

"Didn't participate at all, Aslan dropped them off in the back before coming to defeat the Witch himself," Edmund said. "We were all very young at the time… I suppose Peter and I look young now, but in truth we still have all our memories of the decades**4** we lived in Narnia while at the time we really were just wet-behind-the-ears children. Peter was barely older than you are now, and the rest of us were all younger.**5** Add to that, none of us had experience in war, and we came from a land where girls were expected to be weak and demure, and you have several reasons not to throw Susan and Lucy into the thick of things."

"I suppose… but does that mean that Narnia in your day did not see women as weaker than men? Were there others in the army besides the Warrior Queen?"

King Edmund arched an eyebrow. "I guess Telmarines consider women as unequal to men?"

"Yes," Caspian admitted. That had been a strange preconception to get over while with the Old Narnians. Their army simply wasn't large enough without females of every stripe filling out the ranks along with their male contemporaries. Caspian had presupposed that once the war was over they would all go back to their proper places in the home with their families, but now he wondered how many would remain in the army after it was all said and done.

"Don't get me wrong, in many cases women are physically weaker than men – not always, but often enough – but that does not make them lesser than men, it simply means we must account for that difference in raw strength when training and assigning tasks. All are equal in Aslan's sight, so Narnia strove to treat all equally in law and society. As such, roughly one third of our main army was comprised of women, almost half our knights were women, and over three quarters of our intelligence force were women," King Edmund said.

"I see," Caspian said, trying to wrap his mind around a society where a man and a woman could give each other a respectful salute as mutual members of an Order of Knighthood.

King Edmund gave him a wry look as if he had guessed his thoughts. "Are you so surprised despite there being an Order of the Sisterhood?"

"There was?"

Now the king looked confused. "Yes, of course. What other Order would Lucy be in?"

"Queen Lucy was a knight!?"

"You didn't know? I thought Doctor Cornelius had secretly taught you Old Narnian history."

"He did," Caspian said. "But Queen Lucy is only ever mentioned as the Valiant, the Warrior Queen, and the Lady of the Eastern Sea."

"Great Scott! That's less than half her titles!"

Caspian blushed and scuffed his feet. "I think we lost some of yours as well, my king. I was surprised to hear the High King call you 'Duke of Lantern Waste and Count of the Western March' in his letter."

King Edmund sighed and rubbed his temples. "And I suppose you thought the titles Peter listed for himself were all of them as well?"

"Well… I was confused why he left out calling himself 'the Magnificent', but I didn't think he had any more titles than that."

"By the Lion!"

"Um, King Edmund?"

"Just Edmund," the boy-king cut him off, still scrubbing at his face. "You and I are to be equals in status once you're crowned, so just call me Edmund."

Caspian's eyes widened. He had to work to get his mouth to form coherent words. "A-alright, E-Edmund." That felt so weird. "Um, I was wondering why the High King left out some of his titles in the letter, especially, if like you said, he had more."

"It's the politics of the thing," Edmund said, his voice changing to sound like Doctor Cornelius when he was giving a lecture. "Courtly speech is about a lot more than just flowery words, it's about the layers of meaning hidden beneath those words. When a person names their titles you get two very crucial pieces of information – especially if you know all of the titles already.

"First, you know who the person is. Titles have a life of their own, they can only be given by someone else, usually the general populace, and then must be accepted by the person in question, and in some cases officiated by a third party. Granted, epithets can be given after the person's death without their approval, but that is not important here.

"Second, you learn how the person sees themselves. Which titles they choose to go by and which ones they ignore are massive tells in how they are trying to be perceived. To use Peter as an easy example: his most common title is that of Magnificent, but he did not use it in his letter. Instead he very clearly laid out that it was not his own power, but rather Aslan's, to which all other titles are to be attributed to. This tells the recipient, if they have any brains, that Peter is both humble and has a very powerful and generous ally backing him, but that does not make Peter himself weak because he 'by conquest' became 'High King over all Kings of Narnia'. Anyone receiving this order of titles, especially if they are styling themselves as a king of Narnia, should be very, very afraid to stand against Peter… though I'm beginning to believe that your uncle is rather dim as well as a power hungry tyrant."

That startled a laugh out of Caspian. Edmund had sounded just like his old sword instructor when he was exasperated with a particularly slow learner. The image of Edmund shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose while standing over a sheepish looking Miraz was going to stay in Caspian's head for a long time.

Once he got a hold of himself, the prince asked, "So who are you Four really? I mean, what are your full titles?"

Edmund smirked. "Do you really want to know?"

"Do you think I would say no to hearing about the lives of the Four Sovereigns of Narnia from King Edmund the Just himself?"

The king laughed again. "I see your point. Very well. In order from oldest to youngest: Peter the Magnificent, by gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, High King over all Kings of Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Duke of Ettinsgate, Count of the Northern March, Lord of Cair Paravel, Sir Wolfsbane of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, and the Golden Sword of Narnia.

"Susan the Gentle, by gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, Queen of Narnia, Princess of Archenland, Duchess of Mountain Pass, Countess of the Southern March, Lady of Cair Paravel and of Anvard, Lady of the Horn, and Lady of the Bow.

"Myself, Edmund the Just, by gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, Redeemed King of Narnia, Imperial Judge, Duke of Lantern Waste, Count of the Western March, Sir Wandbreaker of the Noble Order of the Table, and Silver Shield of Narnia.

"And Lucy the Valiant, by gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, Warrior Queen of Narnia, Empress of the Lone Islands, Duchess of Glasswater, Countess of the Eastern March, Lady of the Eastern Sea, Dame Rosenhair of the Noble Order of the Sisterhood, Lady of the Vial, and recently named Lioness of Aslan."

Caspian gaped. He couldn't help it. There were so many titles that had not been passed down, so many names and places that no longer existed, and… where did he start?

"I have so many questions," he said, trying to put his thoughts in order.

Edmund shrugged and settled himself on the floor. "We have time."

Caspian sat down next to the King of Old, ready to hear everything.

* * *

**Ending Notes:**

**1:** The book does not give a clear timeline between Caspian fleeing the castle and summoning the Four. All we are told is that the Narnian army was camped out at the How and had a number of skirmishes with the Telmarine army. So my best guess is that it's been a number of months (maybe even up to a year) since Caspian escaped Miraz.

**2:** Caspian would be between the ages of 11-13 when he left the castle, so I have him at about 13ish right now in this story. Edmund's age is LWW was between 9-11, and he returned to Narnia a year later... I'm going to be playing with the timeline a little here. Instead of 10-12, Edmund is 13 and I'm saying that it's been over a year since the Four came back through the wardrobe (that way Lucy is the nice even number of 12 going to boarding school for the first time, as opposed to 9-11).

**3:** We know that Peter is off fighting the Giants during the events of HHB, and that they are a reoccurring antagonist (mentioned in VDT and Silver Chair), so it's not too far of a stretch to say that the Four had to wallop on them a few different times.

**4:** Though it's widely accepted that the Four stayed in Narnia for only 15 years, the books never give that clear of a timeline. All we are told is that their reign was 'the Golden Age' of Narnia, and 15 years is way too small of a time-frame to be called an age. As such I am making it so that the Four spent about 40 years in Narnia, long enough to establish a kingdom that reached worldwide recognition after a century of essentially the 'Dark Ages' under the Witch.

**5:** Exact ages for the children are not given in the books. What we know is that Lucy and Edmund were about a year apart, and Peter was studying for University during VDT. This would put Peter between 13-15 in LWW so that he would be about 17-18 in VDT. In my Head-Cannon Peter was 14, Susan 12, Edmund 10 1/2, and Lucy 9 1/2 when they first entered Narnia.

Obviously I took a lot of liberties with their titles, Susan in particular. The rest of the mini-series will be focused on explaining various parts of those titles and the stories behind them. From here on out it's all Head-Cannon with maybe a few references to Book-Cannon. I don't know when/what order I will be posting the other entries in the series, or even how many entries there will be, but keep your eye out for "The Real Attributes", "The Real Families", and "The Real Redeemers" for sure.


End file.
